


The Greener Grass

by magnusbicon



Series: Post 3x10 Fics [4]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-15 23:22:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15423906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnusbicon/pseuds/magnusbicon
Summary: Without his magic it’s like the picture that makes him up is suddenly an entirely new image, one that’s weathered and ripped and unprepared to age with the rest of the world.





	The Greener Grass

Magnus has never seen himself as a bitter person.

He’s had his fair share of absolutely abhorrent experiences, some of which were faults of his own, but he’s made of habit of using those situations to better himself, to reflect on his actions- and the actions of those who wronged him- and improve where he can. But this gnawing feeling that lives in his arms, in his chest, that stings in his hands and makes his bones feel like rusty hinges...it’s poisonous, and he knows it.

“Are you okay?” Alec asks when he gets home from the Institute, and isn’t that just the funniest question to ever come out of his mouth?

_Are you okay?_

Magnus is fairly sure that nothing is okay, because he no longer has his magic.

His magic. His lifeline. The reason he’s alive today. His way of offering up some sort of value to the dark world that has rarely treated him with its own kindness is in the clutches of his father, the man who showed him the extent of the evil that is just waiting on his call. 

But still Magnus schools his features, forces a smile on his face, and greets his boyfriend with a kiss, because that’s what he’s supposed to do. He’s supposed to push through his pain and discomfort until he gets to the greener grass. It’s how he’s always lived. 

_Except._

Alec doesn’t seem to miss a thing, his archer’s eyes catching all of his tells, and he can feel them watching his every move. It’s almost suffocating in its intensity, the knowledge that he is known inside and out by someone he only met months ago, and maybe even a little bit overwhelming, because the last person who learned his every mannerism so quickly was Camille.

And of course Alec isn’t her. Not at all. 

She studied every last piece of him under the guise of being loving, and all the while she was actually cutting small holes into each and every part of him until he was an incomplete picture, a fragment of the man he had been before he met her. 

By the time he met Alec he had been almost entirely patched up, but Alec had reached in and helped him heal the ones that were too wide for him to pull together on his own. He fights demons for a living, so it only made sense that he immediately tried to battle Magnus’.

But that doesn’t mean that he can fix everything, that he can understand just how empty Magnus feels. Without his magic it’s like the picture that makes him up is suddenly an entirely new image, one that’s weathered and ripped and unprepared to age with the rest of the world. Where he was once shiny and untouchable, he is now a ticking time bomb. 

“Talk to me,” Alec urges in that absolutely infuriating way that makes it nearly impossible for Magnus to deny him. “Please.”

Magnus stares down at his hands, flexing his fingers and willing for something, anything to happen, and then lets out a frustrated groan. And suddenly words are spilling out of his mouth, all of his anger and sadness, and yes, even some bitterness, curling up into one big flaming ball of hurt that he can only throw outwards. It’s a heady feeling, finally,  _finally_  being able to tell the truth, to stop hiding behind a false persona. 

He’s tired of being brave. He just wants to be Magnus. 

“I know,” Alec responds after a while, completely unfazed by everything that is being hurled his way, and he sounds like he understands, like he really gets it, but he doesn’t. 

“You can’t truly know what you’ve never experienced, Alec,” he snaps. 

And then he turns away from his boyfriend, his jaw aching as he clenches it tightly. Tears are filling his eyes and the world is getting blurry and it’s all-consuming, a whirlwind of love and loss and power that he has never been able to wrap his head or his fingers around.

_How is it possible for him to be too much and not enough at the same time?_  

“I know,” Alec repeats, stepping closer so that his reflection appears behind Magnus’ in the glass. He places his hands on Magnus’ shoulders, his thumbs stroking slowly back and forth. “I know.” 

Magnus believes him. 

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly wrote this as a way to push through writer's block so I'm sorry if it's really word-vomity!


End file.
